Robert Falconer

CHAPTER XV. FATHER AND SON

Once more Falconer retired, but not to take his violin. He could play no more. Hope and love were swelling within him. He could not rest. Was it a sign from heaven that the hour for speech had arrived? He paced up and down the room. He kneeled and prayed for guidance and help. Something within urged him to try the rusted lock of his father’s heart. Without any formed resolution, without any conscious volition, he found himself again in his room. There the old man still sat, with his back to the door, and his gaze fixed on the fire, which had sunk low in the grate. Robert went round in front of him, kneeled on the rug before him, and said the one word,

‘Father!’

Andrew started violently, raised his hand, which trembled as with a palsy, to his head, and stared wildly at Robert. But he did not speak. Robert repeated the one great word. Then Andrew spoke, and said in a trembling, hardly audible voice,

‘Are you my son?—my boy Robert, sir?’

‘I am. I am. Oh, father, I have longed for you by day, and dreamed about you by night, ever since I saw that other boys had fathers, and I had none. Years and years of my life—I hardly know how many—have been spent in searching for you. And now I have found you!’

The great tall man, in the prime of life and strength, laid his big head down on the old man’s knee, as if he had been a little child. His father said nothing, but laid his hand on the head. For some moments the two remained thus, motionless and silent. Andrew was the first to speak. And his words were the voice of the spirit that striveth with man.

‘What am I to do, Robert?’

No other words, not even those of passionate sorrow, or overflowing affection, could have been half so precious in the ears of Robert. When a man once asks what he is to do, there is hope for him. Robert answered instantly,

‘You must come home to your mother.’

‘My mother!’ Andrew exclaimed. ‘You don’t mean to say she’s alive?’

‘I heard from her yesterday—in her own hand, too,’ said Robert.

‘I daren’t. I daren’t,’ murmured Andrew.

‘You must, father,’ returned Robert. ‘It is a long way, but I will make the journey easy for you. She knows I have found you. She is waiting and longing for you. She has hardly thought of anything but you ever since she lost you. She is only waiting to see you, and then she will go home, she says. I wrote to her and said, “Grannie, I have found your Andrew.” And she wrote back to me and said, “God be praised. I shall die in peace.”’

A silence followed.

‘Will she forgive me?’ said Andrew.

‘She loves you more than her own soul,’ answered Robert. ‘She loves you as much as I do. She loves you as God loves you.’

‘God can’t love me,’ said Andrews, feebly. ‘He would never have left me if he had loved me.’

‘He has never left you from the very first. You would not take his way, father, and he just let you try your own. But long before that he had begun to get me ready to go after you. He put such love to you in my heart, and gave me such teaching and such training, that I have found you at last. And now I have found you, I will hold you. You cannot escape—you will not want to escape any more, father?’

Andrew made no reply to this appeal. It sounded like imprisonment for life, I suppose. But thought was moving in him. After a long pause, during which the son’s heart was hungering for a word whereon to hang a further hope, the old man spoke again, muttering as if he were only speaking his thoughts unconsciously.

‘Where’s the use? There’s no forgiveness for me. My mother is going to heaven. I must go to hell. No. It’s no good. Better leave it as it is. I daren’t see her. It would kill me to see her.’

‘It will kill her not to see you; and that will be one sin more on your conscience, father.’

Andrew got up and walked about the room. And Robert only then arose from his knees.

‘And there’s my mother,’ he said.

Andrew did not reply; but Robert saw when he turned next towards the light, that the sweat was standing in beads on his forehead.

‘Father,’ he said, going up to him.

The old man stopped in his walk, turned, and faced his son.

‘Father,’ repeated Robert, ‘you’ve got to repent; and God won’t let you off; and you needn’t think it. You’ll have to repent some day.’

‘In hell, Robert,’ said Andrew, looking him full in the eyes, as he had never looked at him before. It seemed as if even so much acknowledgment of the truth had already made him bolder and honester.

‘Yes. Either on earth or in hell. Would it not be better on earth?’

‘But it will be no use in hell,’ he murmured.

In those few words lay the germ of the preference for hell of poor souls, enfeebled by wickedness. They will not have to do anything there—only to moan and cry and suffer for ever, they think. It is effort, the out-going of the living will that they dread. The sorrow, the remorse of repentance, they do not so much regard: it is the action it involves; it is the having to turn, be different, and do differently, that they shrink from; and they have been taught to believe that this will not be required of them there—in that awful refuge of the will-less. I do not say they think thus: I only say their dim, vague, feeble feelings are such as, if they grew into thought, would take this form. But tell them that the fire of God without and within them will compel them to bethink themselves; that the vision of an open door beyond the smoke and the flames will ever urge them to call up the ice-bound will, that it may obey; that the torturing spirit of God in them will keep their consciences awake, not to remind them of what they ought to have done, but to tell them what they must do now, and hell will no longer fascinate them. Tell them that there is no refuge from the compelling Love of God, save that Love itself—that He is in hell too, and that if they make their bed in hell they shall not escape him, and then, perhaps, they will have some true presentiment of the worm that dieth not and the fire that is not quenched.

‘Father, it will be of use in hell,’ said Robert. ‘God will give you no rest even there. You will have to repent some day, I do believe—if not now under the sunshine of heaven, then in the torture of the awful world where there is no light but that of the conscience. Would it not be better and easier to repent now, with your wife waiting for you in heaven, and your mother waiting for you on earth?’

Will it be credible to my reader, that Andrew interrupted his son with the words,

‘Robert, it is dreadful to hear you talk like that. Why, you don’t believe in the Bible!’

His words will be startling to one who has never heard the lips of a hoary old sinner drivel out religion. To me they are not so startling as the words of Christian women and bishops of the Church of England, when they say that the doctrine of the everlasting happiness of the righteous stands or falls with the doctrine of the hopeless damnation of the wicked. Can it be that to such the word is everything, the spirit nothing? No. It is only that the devil is playing a very wicked prank, not with them, but in them: they are pluming themselves on being selfish after a godly sort.

‘I do believe the Bible, father,’ returned Robert, ‘and have ordered my life by it. If I had not believed the Bible, I fear I should never have looked for you. But I won’t dispute about it. I only say I believe that you will be compelled to repent some day, and that now is the best time. Then, you will not only have to repent, but to repent that you did not repent now. And I tell you, father, that you shall go to my grandmother.’

CHAPTER XVI. CHANGE OF SCENE

But various reasons combined to induce Falconer to postpone yet for a period their journey to the North. Not merely did his father require an unremitting watchfulness, which it would be difficult to keep up in his native place amongst old friends and acquaintances, but his health was more broken than he had at first supposed, and change of air and scene without excitement was most desirable. He was anxious too that the change his mother must see in him should be as little as possible attributable to other causes than those that years bring with them. To this was added that his own health had begun to suffer from the watching and anxiety he had gone through, and for his father’s sake, as well as for the labour which yet lay before him, he would keep that as sound as he might. He wrote to his grandmother and explained the matter. She begged him to do as he thought best, for she was so happy that she did not care if she should never see Andrew in this world: it was enough to die in the hope of meeting him in the other. But she had no reason to fear that death was at hand; for, although much more frail, she felt as well as ever.

By this time Falconer had introduced me to his father. I found him in some things very like his son; in others, very different. His manners were more polished; his pleasure in pleasing much greater: his humanity had blossomed too easily, and then run to seed. Alas, to no seed that could bear fruit! There was a weak expression about his mouth—a wavering interrogation: it was so different from the firmly-closed portals whence issued the golden speech of his son! He had a sly, sidelong look at times, whether of doubt or cunning, I could not always determine. His eyes, unlike his son’s, were of a light blue, and hazy both in texture and expression. His hands were long-fingered and tremulous. He gave your hand a sharp squeeze, and the same instant abandoned it with indifference. I soon began to discover in him a tendency to patronize any one who showed him a particle of respect as distinguished from common-place civility. But under all outward appearances it seemed to me that there was a change going on: at least being very willing to believe it, I found nothing to render belief impossible.

He was very fond of the flute his son had given him, and on that sweetest and most expressionless of instruments he played exquisitely.

One evening when I called to see them, Falconer said,

‘We are going out of town for a few weeks, Gordon: will you go with us?’

‘I am afraid I can’t.’

‘Why? You have no teaching at present, and your writing you can do as well in the country as in town.’

‘That is true; but still I don’t see how I can. I am too poor for one thing.’

‘Between you and me that is nonsense.’

‘Well, I withdraw that,’ I said. ‘But there is so much to be done, specially as you will be away, and Miss St John is at the Lakes.’

‘That is all very true; but you need a change. I have seen for some weeks that you are failing. Mind, it is our best work that He wants, not the dregs of our exhaustion. I hope you are not of the mind of our friend Mr. Watts, the curate of St. Gregory’s.’

‘I thought you had a high opinion of Mr. Watts,’ I returned.

‘So I have. I hope it is not necessary to agree with a man in everything before we can have a high opinion of him.’

‘Of course not. But what is it you hope I am not of his opinion in?’

‘He seems ambitious of killing himself with work—of wearing himself out in the service of his master—and as quickly as possible. A good deal of that kind of thing is a mere holding of the axe to the grindstone, not a lifting of it up against thick trees. Only he won’t be convinced till it comes to the helve. I met him the other day; he was looking as white as his surplice. I took upon me to read him a lecture on the holiness of holidays. “I can’t leave my poor,” he said. “Do you think God can’t do without you?” I asked. “Is he so weak that he cannot spare the help of a weary man? But I think he must prefer quality to quantity, and for healthy work you must be healthy yourself. How can you be the visible sign of the Christ-present amongst men, if you inhabit an exhausted, irritable brain? Go to God’s infirmary and rest a while. Bring back health from the country to those that cannot go to it. If on the way it be transmuted into spiritual forms, so much the better. A little more of God will make up for a good deal less of you.”’

‘What did he say to that?’

‘He said our Lord died doing the will of his Father. I told him—“Yes, when his time was come, not sooner. Besides, he often avoided both speech and action.” “Yes,” he answered, “but he could tell when, and we cannot.” “Therefore,” I rejoined, “you ought to accept your exhaustion as a token that your absence will be the best thing for your people. If there were no God, then perhaps you ought to work till you drop down dead—I don’t know.”’

‘Is he gone yet?’

‘No. He won’t go. I couldn’t persuade him.’

‘When do you go?’

‘To-morrow.’

‘I shall be ready, if you really mean it.’

‘That’s an if worthy only of a courtier. There may be much virtue in an if, as Touchstone says, for the taking up of a quarrel; but that if is bad enough to breed one,’ said Falconer, laughing. ‘Be at the Paddington Station at noon to-morrow. To tell the whole truth, I want you to help me with my father.’

This last was said at the door as he showed me out.

In the afternoon we were nearing Bristol. It was a lovely day in October. Andrew had been enjoying himself; but it was evidently rather the pleasure of travelling in a first-class carriage like a gentleman than any delight in the beauty of heaven and earth. The country was in the rich sombre dress of decay.

‘Is it not remarkable,’ said my friend to me, ‘that the older I grow, I find autumn affecting me the more like spring?’

‘I am thankful to say,’ interposed Andrew, with a smile in which was mingled a shade of superiority, ‘that no change of the seasons ever affects me.’

‘Are you sure you are right in being thankful for that, father?’ asked his son.

His father gazed at him for a moment, seemed to bethink himself after some feeble fashion or other, and rejoined,

‘Well, I must confess I did feel a touch of the rheumatism this morning.’

How I pitied Falconer! Would he ever see of the travail of his soul in this man? But he only smiled a deep sweet smile, and seemed to be thinking divine things in that great head of his.

At Bristol we went on board a small steamer, and at night were landed at a little village on the coast of North Devon. The hotel to which we went was on the steep bank of a tumultuous little river, which tumbled past its foundation of rock, like a troop of watery horses galloping by with ever-dissolving limbs. The elder Falconer retired almost as soon as we had had supper. My friend and I lighted our pipes, and sat by the open window, for although the autumn was so far advanced, the air here was very mild. For some time we only listened to the sound of the waters.

‘There are three things,’ said Falconer at last, taking his pipe out of his mouth with a smile, ‘that give a peculiarly perfect feeling of abandonment: the laughter of a child; a snake lying across a fallen branch; and the rush of a stream like this beneath us, whose only thought is to get to the sea.’

We did not talk much that night, however, but went soon to bed. None of us slept well. We agreed in the morning that the noise of the stream had been too much for us all, and that the place felt close and torpid. Andrew complained that the ceaseless sound wearied him, and Robert that he felt the aimless endlessness of it more than was good for him. I confess it irritated me like an anodyne unable to soothe. We were clearly all in want of something different. The air between the hills clung to them, hot and moveless. We would climb those hills, and breathe the air that flitted about over their craggy tops.

As soon as we had breakfasted, we set out. It was soon evident that Andrew could not ascend the steep road. We returned and got a carriage. When we reached the top, it was like a resurrection, like a dawning of hope out of despair. The cool friendly wind blew on our faces, and breathed strength into our frames. Before us lay the ocean, the visible type of the invisible, and the vessels with their white sails moved about over it like the thoughts of men feebly searching the unknown. Even Andrew Falconer spread out his arms to the wind, and breathed deep, filling his great chest full.

‘I feel like a boy again,’ he said.

His son strode to his side, and laid his arm over his shoulders.

‘So do I, father,’ he returned; ‘but it is because I have got you.’

The old man turned and looked at him with a tenderness I had never seen on his face before. As soon as I saw that, I no longer doubted that he could be saved.

We found rooms in a farm-house on the topmost height.

‘These are poor little hills, Falconer,’ I said. ‘Yet they help one like mountains.’

‘The whole question is,’ he returned, ‘whether they are high enough to lift you out of the dirt. Here we are in the airs of heaven—that is all we need.’

‘They make me think how often, amongst the country people of Scotland, I have wondered at the clay-feet upon which a golden head of wisdom stood! What poor needs, what humble aims, what a narrow basement generally, was sufficient to support the statues of pure-eyed Faith and white-handed Hope.’

‘Yes,’ said Falconer: ‘he who is faithful over a few things is a lord of cities. It does not matter whether you preach in Westminster Abbey, or teach a ragged class, so you be faithful. The faithfulness is all.’

After an early dinner we went out for a walk, but we did not go far before we sat down upon the grass. Falconer laid himself at full length and gazed upwards.

‘When I look like this into the blue sky,’ he said, after a moment’s silence, ‘it seems so deep, so peaceful, so full of a mysterious tenderness, that I could lie for centuries, and wait for the dawning of the face of God out of the awful loving-kindness.’

I had never heard Falconer talk of his own present feelings in this manner; but glancing at the face of his father with a sense of his unfitness to hear such a lofty utterance, I saw at once that it was for his sake that he had thus spoken. The old man had thrown himself back too, and was gazing into the sky, puzzling himself, I could see, to comprehend what his son could mean. I fear he concluded, for the time, that Robert was not gifted with the amount of common-sense belonging of right to the Falconer family, and that much religion had made him a dreamer. Still, I thought I could see a kind of awe pass like a spiritual shadow across his face as he gazed into the blue gulfs over him. No one can detect the first beginnings of any life, and those of spiritual emotion must more than any lie beyond our ken: there is infinite room for hope. Falconer said no more. We betook ourselves early within doors, and he read King Lear to us, expounding the spiritual history of the poor old king after a fashion I had never conceived—showing us how the said history was all compressed, as far as human eye could see of it, into the few months that elapsed between his abdication and his death; how in that short time he had to learn everything that he ought to have been learning all his life; and how, because he had put it off so long, the lessons that had then to be given him were awfully severe.

I thought what a change it was for the old man to lift his head into the air of thought and life, out of the sloughs of misery in which he had been wallowing for years.

CHAPTER XVII. IN THE COUNTRY

The next morning Falconer, who knew the country, took us out for a drive. We passed through lanes and gates out upon all open moor, where he stopped the carriage, and led us a few yards on one side. Suddenly, hundreds of feet below us, down what seemed an almost precipitous descent, we saw the wood-embosomed, stream-trodden valley we had left the day before. Enough had been cleft and scooped seawards out of the lofty table-land to give room for a few little conical hills with curious peaks of bare rock. At the bases of these hills flowed noisily two or three streams, which joined in one, and trotted out to sea over rocks and stones. The hills and the sides of the great cleft were half of them green with grass, and half of them robed in the autumnal foliage of thick woods. By the streams and in the woods nestled pretty houses; and away at the mouth of the valley and the stream lay the village. All around, on our level, stretched farm and moorland.

When Andrew Falconer stood so unexpectedly on the verge of the steep descent, he trembled and started back with fright. His son made him sit down a little way off, where yet we could see into the valley. The sun was hot, the air clear and mild, and the sea broke its blue floor into innumerable sparkles of radiance. We sat for a while in silence.

‘Are you sure,’ I said, in the hope of setting my friend talking, ‘that there is no horrid pool down there? no half-trampled thicket, with broken pottery and shreds of tin lying about? no dead carcass, or dirty cottage, with miserable wife and greedy children? When I was a child, I knew a lovely place that I could not half enjoy, because, although hidden from my view, an ugly stagnation, half mud, half water, lay in a certain spot below me. When I had to pass it, I used to creep by with a kind of dull terror, mingled with hopeless disgust, and I have never got over the feeling.’

‘You remind me much of a friend of mine of whom I have spoken to you before,’ said Falconer, ‘Eric Ericson. I have shown you many of his verses, but I don’t think I ever showed you one little poem containing an expression of the same feeling. I think I can repeat it.

I sat thinking over the verses, for I found the feeling a little difficult to follow, although the last stanza was plain enough. Falconer resumed.

‘I think this is as likely as any place,’ he said, ‘to be free of such physical blots. For the moral I cannot say. But I have learned, I hope, not to be too fastidious—I mean so as to be unjust to the whole because of the part. The impression made by a whole is just as true as the result of an analysis, and is greater and more valuable in every respect. If we rejoice in the beauty of the whole, the other is sufficiently forgotten. For moral ugliness, it ceases to distress in proportion as we labour to remove it, and regard it in its true relations to all that surrounds it. There is an old legend which I dare say you know. The Saviour and his disciples were walking along the way, when they came upon a dead dog. The disciples did not conceal their disgust. The Saviour said: “How white its teeth are!”’

‘That is very beautiful,’ I rejoined. ‘Thank God for that. It is true, whether invented or not. But,’ I added, ‘it does not quite answer to the question about which we have been talking. The Lord got rid of the pain of the ugliness by finding the beautiful in it.’

‘It does correspond, however, I think, in principle,’ returned Falconer; ‘only it goes much farther, making the exceptional beauty hallow the general ugliness—which is the true way, for beauty is life, and therefore infinitely deeper and more powerful than ugliness which is death. “A dram of sweet,” says Spenser, “is worth a pound of sour.”’

It was so delightful to hear him talk—for what he said was not only far finer than my record of it, but the whole man spoke as well as his mouth—that I sought to start him again.

‘I wish,’ I said, ‘that I could see things as you do—in great masses of harmonious unity. I am only able to see a truth sparkling here and there, and to try to lay hold of it. When I aim at more, I am like Noah’s dove, without a place to rest the sole of my foot.’

‘That is the only way to begin. Leave the large vision to itself, and look well after your sparkles. You will find them grow and gather and unite, until you are afloat on a sea of radiance—with cloud shadows no doubt.’

‘And yet,’ I resumed, ‘I never seem to have room.’

‘That is just why.’

‘But I feel that I cannot find it. I know that if I fly to that bounding cape on the far horizon there, I shall only find a place—a place to want another in. There is no fortunate island out on that sea.’